Like wildflowers, there is something about ideas that have a tendency towards coming in bunches. And, like wildflowers and ideas, we have a further notion that misfortune, likewise, comes in droves and groupings.

Is that a Law of Nature, or merely an observation that has no logical foundation or factual basis? Didn’t that neighbor down the street get hit by a car, and at the same time — within a week of such a tragic event — lose his wife and 3 kids? Wasn’t it Uncle Billy who stepped on a nail, and with a few days had his house burglarized and his dog shot in the process? And surely we recall that movie star who drank himself silly one night and then mistook a shadow for a stranger when it turned out to be his girlfriend’s best friend who shot him in the arm and then took her own life?

These we all recall; and like Hume’s dictum that causality is nothing more than mere combinations of repetitive occurrences, we fail to recognize the silent workings of events unfolding which quietly and subtly fester in the unknown universe of our own ignorance; and yet, when they come to the fore, we relate one to the other. But ideas are different; they do, indeed, come in bunches, perhaps because the creative energy lagging behind suddenly realizes that potentiality can be actualized when for all those years they remained as stagnant molecules lost in a world of microscopic insignificance.

So, that being said, here are a bunch of ideas: For Federal and Postal workers who believe that the medical condition suffered cannot be accommodated, why not file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits? What if you weren’t even aware of such a benefit? What if the benefit is not widely circulated, never trumpeted and rarely announced?

You have 1 year from the date of separation from service to file, and as it takes a significant amount of time to properly prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, if might be a good idea to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law — lest the ideas that come in bunches turn out to be bad luck that arrive in groupings; for, in that case, it is certainly time to consider that one’s destiny depends entirely upon actions taken, and not upon ignoring the signs of misfortune that do, indeed, come in bunches.

One can, of course, obtain an “excellent” medical report — i.e., one that has full, unequivocal support in providing a clear diagnosis, description of symptoms, impact upon specific job functions, etc., with an unequivocal conclusion of disability beyond the specific elements of one’s job functions, etc. — and yet get denied by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

On the other hand, one can submit with a Federal Disability Retirement application a “mediocre” medical report — e.g., one that is generalized and non-specific, and shows scant reference to specific job functions, and provides barely a conclusion of disability, and yet get an approval at the First Stage of a Federal Disability Retirement application.

So, one may ask, where is the consistency shown by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management? Is it all a matter of perspective — of a crap shoot as to who reviews a Federal Disability Retirement application at OPM? The fact is, there is no “perfect” methodology that will guarantee that a well-prepared Federal Disability Retirement application will be approved at the First Stage of the OPM Disability Retirement process.

However, there are certainly “chance-enhancers” — those preparatory actions that exponentially increase the probability of success at each stage of a Federal Disability Retirement process — that will help to ensure that, more likely than not (sort of like the legal standard itself — of a “preponderance of the evidence” — that is applied to a Federal Disability Retirement case), your Federal Disability Retirement application, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, will have a successful outcome with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

First and foremost, understand the critical structure of a Federal Disability Retirement application: The foundation of every Federal Disability Retirement application is the medical report. It is the foundation of a Federal Disability Retirement application (otherwise referred to as an “FDR”); from it, the legal arguments arise and the justifying Applicant’s Statement of Disability are together formulated.

Thus, just as a shaky building’s foundation will likely fail to withstand even a minor earthquake or a minimal subterranean tremor, so a mediocre medical report will often decrease the chances of a First Stage FDR approval.

Are there ways to counter such mediocrity? Yes — by pointing out other critical elements of the case. And, of course, sometimes the choices are limited, where it is better to proceed even with a mediocre medical report than not at all, and to put the best case forward regardless of the insufficiency of a mediocre medical report.

There are appropriate contexts within which to consider them, as well as places, insertions, events and conversational modalities where it is partly or entirely irrelevant; but as with most things in life, the boundaries that bifurcate are not always clear and distinct. When one is considering purely subjective circumstances, it is clearly the “appropriate” moment — of personal relationships; of a vacation to be taken; of emotions being considered.

In a court of law, it is probably not the best approach to take with a judge; although, in the sentencing phase or the “damages” argument to be made to a jury, it may be the singular force of persuasive impact that makes not only the distinction unclear, but the decision quite the decisive edge.

“Feelings” are to be reserved for puppies, late nights in bed with a fever, and how the toes tickle when lying on a grassy knoll in the middle of summer when the lone ant walks along the pathway of your bare skin.

Do we dare admit to them? When you are in a heated argument, is it not an oxymoron to shout, “Feelings don’t have anything to do with it!” For, what is the criteria to be applied when making a decision based upon them? Does the spectrum of emotions never cloud one’s judgment? Or can we, as we often claim, set them aside so easily, like so many automatons in those doomsday movies that have become popularized, where androids and mechanized juggernauts that have taken over the earth and tried to suppress humanity are now the very beings whom we always wanted to emulate?

And what of the French Existentialists and the horror of reaction to that old favorite, “Invasion of the body snatchers” — what was it that made it so fascinating, where beings were stripped of their souls and emotions were all of a sudden undone, extinguished and no longer relevant, where bodies devoid of feelings walked about the earth like so many empty tombs?

Feelings are funny animals; they make up so much of who we are, and yet we spend a lifetime trying to avoid the very essence of that which makes up who we are.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal Worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, the anomaly concerning “feelings” becomes quickly apparent: for, confronted with having to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application before an administrative body — the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — you are asked to remain “clinical” and antiseptic in the face of “proving” the medical evidence by the cold calculus of “the law”, and yet at the same time you are trying to convey your “feelings” with respect to the impact of the pain, the anguish of anxiety or the daily levels of profound fatigue felt.

It is a tightrope, balancing act that must be done with expertise, subtle techniques and an interspersing of line-crossing deftly engaged. Completing the SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, is the single most important form in preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, aside from gathering the proper medical documentation and making the persuasive legal argumentation.

For, in the end, that lifetime of trying to suppress those “feelings” must be utilized carefully, yet at the same time you have to be persuasive enough to touch upon the emotional makeup of a fellow human being who, also, likely has had to suppress those same feelings in order to apply “the law”. Go figure.

Memories are funny animals; they travel and traverse endless miles of countless eternities, over fences artificially constructed and through tunnels built within the deep caverns of one’s mind; and in the end, they represent only a slice of accuracy in the whole of what really happened.

Sometimes, even after decades of being together with a “significant other”, a remnant of bygone memories erupts. Perhaps some scent, or something someone said, or a picture that jarred and shook one’s cobwebs from the recesses of the brain occurred without a deliberative consciousness to do so; and we say, “Oh, yes, when I was six years old, I remember…” And a remnant of bygone memories surfaces, like a corpse buried with a tombstone long forgotten behind the churchyard overgrown with weeds, and a flood rushes in and ravages the soil by erosion of natural forces and digs up the caskets rotted by time, whispers and hidden secrets.

Were they ever forgotten, and did we simply allow them to remain in a corner of closeted images? Does a truly forgotten memory ever resurface by accident, or is it by fate, destiny, karma and coincidence that at a given place in time, we are suddenly forced to relive a time period buried deep within the unconscious triggers of a soul haunted? Do we bury memories like we do to the dead, because to not do it would mean to allow the stench of decay to fester within the sensitivities of our inner health?

Encounters with reality and the problems of the day often provoke a remnant of bygone memories; it is, in the end, the present that we must face, within a context of past wrongs committed and previous difficulties perhaps too easily avoided, that come back to haunt us.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job duties, a remnant of bygone memories can include serious medical conditions that trigger PTSD, depressive symptoms, anxiety and panic attacks.

Do they need validation from a medical doctor to affirm the foundation of a valid case? Yes.

For, a remnant of bygone memories can impede and prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, and it is that medical nexus between human memory, job elements and psychiatric capacity that in the end creates the foundational paradigm of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, based upon a remnant of bygone memories.

We come upon it, and it sits gleaming with partial concealment in the tall grass beyond the river’s edge. Whose was it? Was it a child who threw it, or a parent, grandparent, or maybe even a sibling? Did the child search for it, or was it forgotten soon after a futile search in directions otherwise unaccounted for?

Was there a party gathered, a picnic prepared and a blanket covered upon the grassy knoll; and were gloves included in the melee? Was there laughter rumbling through the forest beyond, slowly dissipating in voices joyfully warmth in the sunlight of mumblings incomprehensible and lost among the groves of wildlife hidden behind and beyond? Was the chatter of children full in the morning air, or lost in the heat of a midsummer’s dream? From a lost ball in the field, can reality be reconstructed, or are the imaginations of dreams forgotten and hopes still hinting of a future unfulfilled, forever to be a wistful memory of what could have been, was, or even might have been?

Perhaps, some over-exuberant father threw the ball and it sailed over the head of the child; the child, watching as it travels overhead, then behind, then beyond where the periphery of limits placed in a universe that has been foretold of dangers and mysteries, watches as it bounces a few times, then disappears. Perhaps there is a shout – something like, “Sorry, Tommy…let’s go find it!” Then, a rush and rustling of footsteps, and a made-up race to the finish line: “First one that finds it is the winner!”

Gleeful shouts and joyful shivers, even in the sunlight of warmth and happiness, because for this moment, in this slice of time, a lost ball is bound to yet be discovered, and it is merely a temporary delay in yet an incomplete day’s fun. But the search reveals nothing; the world conceals and refuses to cough up and unravel the mysteries of hidden meanings; and after a time, further voices calling for the consumption of picnics prepared and sandwiches to be unwrapped, and the sagging shoulders of a disappointed child must needs be the focal point of a universe otherwise uncaring and impervious.

Is this what happened, or did an old codger have a ball in his back pocket, was taking a walk with his dog, and it dropped silently out and rolled into the field, leaving behind any such creative imaginings to another page, an unfinished chapter, or a novel unpublished?

Things can be created out of whole cloth, or not at all. What we include in the narrative of our meanderings is a choice, of sorts. The child that walked away that mid-summer day’s loss – of what sorrow did he carry, and what tales did he tell tomorrow to his friends at school? We all carry around narratives; what we choose to relate is up to us.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, in formulating a Federal Disability Retirement application to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management – remember that, like the boy’s experience of the lost ball, the content of the narrative is important, and the delineation of the tonal quality of the facts is significant; choose with discretion the substance of the responses, lest the lost ball becomes found again, and it turns out that it was the old codger, after all, and not by the wonderment of a child’s unbelieving eyes.

The ability to expunge, extinguish or recant is only available to the extent that memory serves us well; for, as the last veteran of a war once fought follows to a grave avoided in the skirmishes and battles long forgotten, so the discarding of memorialized narratives will survive long past, or be placed upon the dusty shelves of books unread and periodicals unsealed.

Human memory itself, of course, is fickle and fraught with errors of judgment and contextual intermingling of past vestiges, present impressions and future anticipatory angst of what should be; thus do short stories and novels of Dickensian genres magnify the perspective from a child’s memory of slights and wrongs committed. It is when the written form is completed, that we are locked into the truth or falsity of an otherwise remembered past.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the narrative Statement of Disability as propounded, explicated and sealed on SF 3112A becomes the foundation of one’s application. For that is where the facts, figures and featured fellowship between one’s medical condition, the work one engages in, and the nexus between the two will determine the evaluative force and analytical judgment of the Administrative Specialist at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Once the Federal Disability Retirement application is submitted to Boyers, Pennsylvania, and a CSA Number is assigned, the content of the narrative statement is accepted and ensconced in stone; medical conditions cannot be “added”, but they can follow the course of substantive inclusion; and nor can the narrative be recanted, despite differing memories diverging from the written Statement of Disability as submitted to OPM on SF 3112A.

As such, one must take care in the preparation, formulation and filing of an OPM Disability Retirement application, for the narrative recanted must be withdrawn, but the residue of past submissions may remain in copied form in the unforgiving files of a bureaucracy which never discards anything, even unto the dustbin of history.

Sometimes, it is the striving itself which has propelled the continuation of action without thought, constancy without interruption, deterioration without remedy, and life without living; and amidst the automatic pilot which has carried forth the daily treadmill of forward progression, one looks back and wonders, Where did the time go? Where did the concept come from — of unmanned space flights, drones without onboard pilots and driverless cars?

Yet, we need only look at ourselves in the mirror, and realize that the reflection which looks back is merely an image which disappears when the eyes close, the lights are turned off, or we simply walk out from the room. Who we are; the essence of our very make-up; the surface appearance which belies the core and centrality of the bundle which aggregates to define the whole; is it the effort, or merely the thrill of the trying, which compels the hunt?

Time passes, but we rarely notice; age comes upon us, and like that proverbial thief in the dead of night, the wrinkles form like caverns scraping at the earthen clay, forming ruts and ravages over evolutionary quietudes of moonlit shores. We strive too hard.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who come to a point of recognition that all of the effort in the world will not save their jobs because of the medical condition which continues to deteriorate and impact one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of the positional duties empowered, the necessity and realization of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may come at different times, alternate phases, and indiscriminate moments when least expected.

Time can be a friend for medical conditions, but when the treadmill of striving takes us nowhere, the moment may have passed, and long since left us, beyond the period when we should have already filed. Doctors have already spoken; friends have already warned; and family members have shared their concerns well beyond intrusion of courtesy. Letting go of one’s past glories is often the hardest part of the process, but let go we must, and begin to prepare, formulate and file for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

Seven False Myths about OPM Disability Retirement

1) I have to be totally disabled to get Postal or Federal disability retirement.
False: You are eligible for disability retirement so long as you are unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of your job. Thus, it is a much lower standard of disability.

2) My injury or illness has to be job-related.
False: You can get disability even if your condition is not work related. If your medical condition impacts your ability to perform any of the core elements of your job, you are eligible, regardless of how or where your condition occurred.

3) I have to quit my federal job first to get disability.
False: In most cases, you can apply while continuing to work at your present job, to the extent you are able.

4) I can't get disability if I suffer from a mental or nervous condition.
False: If your condition affects your job performance, you can still qualify. Psychiatric conditions are treated no differently from physical conditions.

5) Disability retirement is approved by DOL Workers Comp.
False: It's the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) the federal agency that administers and approves disability for employees at the US Postal Service or other federal agencies.

6) I can wait for OPM disability retirement for many years after separation.
False: You only have one year from the date of separation from service - otherwise, you lose your right forever.

7) If I get disability retirement, I won't be able to apply for Scheduled Award (SA).
False: You can get a Scheduled Award under the rules of OWCP even after you get approved for OPM disability retirement.